Why Do You Lie?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the briefing room commotion over the President's mental acuity
after Biden called out for a congresswoman who died in
a car crash last month at a Hunger and Nutrition event,
booker representative Jackie here. Where's Jackie? I think she was here,
the Press secretary struggled to explain. And I don't think

(00:21):
it's all that unusual to have some one top of mind,
especially as there's a big event, two big events today
and also Friday that is going to occur, and so
he's going to see her family, they're going to honor her.
That didn't make a lot of sense. But when Press
Press Secretary Crean John Pierre said her answer would not
be changing. I watched some of that press briefing in

(00:44):
the White House, and I had not seen the press
corps jumped together on a question as much as the
one about President Biden looking for the nab deceased congresswoman
in the audience. It just seemed like the easier response
would have been a tecknowledge meant that the President misspoke,
But that's not the answer that we got. So when
I heard Bear say that I have not seen the

(01:05):
press corps jumped together on our response like that, I thought,
I gotta look into this, so I got a good
report with the transcript on it. This is from the
New York Post. The Biden administration's regular briefing devolved into
chaos as reporters pressed Jean Pierre to address the seventy
nine year old president's mental health. Biden made the gaff
earlier Wednesday at a nutrition event, saying, Jackie, Jackie here,
you here? Where's Jackie, despite the fact that he publicly

(01:28):
mourned the woman's death in a car crash last month,
talked about it publicly and privately with his wife, and
mentioned it a couple of times. So it's not like
it's some randy. You know, they're four and thirty five.
I was thinking maybe they're they're far and thirty five. Congressmen,
you don't keep track of all of them. You know,
your office gets alert. One of them died, you lower
the flag. But he publicly mentioned her, uh and talked

(01:52):
to the family on the phone. Apparently back then. Anyway,
Jean Pierre gave almost identical answers when I asked about
the stunning remark by reporters from ABC, CNN, CBS, and
The Washington Post. All asking about this as it became
a bit of a freeing feeding frenzy on the topic.
The questions grew increasingly pointed, as the Press Secretary said

(02:13):
nine times that Jackie was simply top of mind for Biden,
without saying why the President thought she was still alive.
Steve Portnoy of CBS Radio, the third reporter to raise
the topic after ABC Cecilia Vega and CNN's filmattically asked
John Pierre. Was the President confused? Was something written on
the teleprompter that he didn't recognize? I'm trying to find

(02:36):
out what happened here, Portnoy said, you're jumping to a
lot of conclusions, said John Pierre. If that had been
the case, I would have stated that what I said
was that she was top of mind and that he's
going to see your family in just two days time.
Portnoy followed up, and again portnoise with CBS News. Portnoy
followed up asking John Pierre if the White House would
release Biden's prepared scripts so people could understand how the

(02:58):
error occurred. The Press Secretary answered that she didn't understand
what this has to do with anything. I just answered
the question about her being top of mind. John Pierre added,
I don't think that's unusual. I feel like many of
us have gone through that particular time where someone is
on top of mine and you called them out. Wow.

(03:20):
So I don't know about you. Maybe I only know
my own personal experience. Have you ever had somebody on
your mind and you start calling out their name after
their dead, perhaps in private? Uh? Yeah, that's that is
a well, that's a couple of things. Number one. It
is a strange and indecipherable stringing together of a bunch
of words don't really mean anything, and she's not very

(03:42):
good at it. Well, she's just in a difficult spot. Although,
as Jackie Henrich and Fox said, she just said she
would have just said it was a misstatement of mistake
and then move on trying to claim it wasn't. For
some reason, other reporters kept up the pressure, with Matt
Weiser of The Washington Post telling Jean Pierre, the confusing
part is why if Key and the family are top
of mind, does the president think she's living in the room?

(04:05):
He said, a decent question from the Washington Post. Yeah,
I don't think that's confusing, John Pierre insisted, I mean,
I think many people can speak to sometimes when we
have someone top of mind, the top of mind exactly
that it happened at an event where we were calling
out the champions. Is Kamala writing it happened at an
event where we were calling out the champions, congressional champions

(04:27):
in particular of the issue. At that point, Newsmatch reporter
James Rosen said, I I have John Lennon top of
mind just about every day, but I'm not looking around
for him anywhere. And John Pierre said, well, when you
sign a bill for John Lennon as president, then we
can have this conversation. What E W t N reporter

(04:50):
Owen Jensen meanwhile interjected by shouting, why not just apologize?
Al Jazeera's Kimberly Hackett took up the matter and insisted
on a straight answer. These moments of confusion are happening
increased frequency. Americans are watching this and they're having concerns.
What do you say to that this is a legitimate question.
We need to have some answers, said another reporter. Jean
Pierre ignored that question and called on a different porter

(05:11):
to ask a question. I'm sorry, somebody who's yelling the
press secretary said. Haskett persisted, shouting, we were asking about
the mental acuity of the president. It is not your
turn to speak, and you're being rude to your colleague,
Jean Pierre snapped, refusing to engage in the direct question
about Biden's mental health. You might be being rude to
us by not answering the question, he he countered, You're

(05:32):
yelling over your colleagues. So that is incredibly regrud John Pierre,
which who had at that point successfully turned it into
a battle with a you know, a journalist about rudeness
and getting away from the topic, which is a good
Can we have an answer to the substantive question here? Though?
A Washington Post reporter then shouted out, top of mind
is not an answer, how could answered before dropping her

(05:55):
attempted line of inquiry And that was the end of that.
But so another reporter jumped in there at the end,
can we just have a straight answer on this topic? Yeah,
as as was stated there by Brett where Bear, who
used to be in the White House press room, he
hadn't seen them all together jump on a topic like
this and quite some time. So I just I think
maybe the tide is turned on the whole You're gonna

(06:17):
hide the fact that the president's mind is broken. I
would say that whichever reporter said. I think about John
Lennon every day, but I don't call out his name
and think he's in the room. I think that's James Rosen,
wasn't it. Oh boy, oh boy, that's I'm laughing, but

(06:40):
I'm feeling guilty about it.